Police searching for suspected burglar in Angeleno Heights*

A police helicopter has circled over Angeleno Heights and Echo Park tonight for nearly two hours as officers search for a burglary suspect. The search began at about midnight after officers spotted a man who had eluded them the night before following a previous incident, said officer Melvin Gamble with the Rampart Division. A canine unit is assisting officers with the search focused on the area near Allison Avenue and Laveta Terrace.

* Update: The suspect was not apprehended, according to Lt. Wes Buhrmester.

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I haven’t been able to sleep for 4 hours. Can’t the police on foot handle it at this point? Between this and the homeless dude with the rotten foot (you’ve seen him in front of Bank of America) taking a shit on our front yard tonight, I’m over this whole night/morning.

no wonder i couldnt get home i stay on allison there was like 13 units and no1 would tell me anything but to wait till the search was over.i eventually got home thru douglas, its 3:51 n theres still 1 unit going down allison searchn…hopefully they capture the individual………im keep my eye open if they didnt

the cops were informative enough to tell me what was happening. dogs were hunting the guy and every house/yard on allison was being searched. what’s amazing is that he wasn’t caught after all of that effort. allison isn’t safe anymore, for this and many reasons.

There are way too many helicopters flying above Echo Park. Every day. Almost every hour, it seems. And to go through something like this at night for almost two hours makes you wonder if disturbing the peace for hundreds of people, and spending hundreds of dollars on a pilot and fuel, is worth the chance of catching one burglary suspect.

i agree, especially since it was more like 4.5 hours and i’m cranky as hell from no sleep. but to counterpoint myself, the idea of walking up to my house (behind a house) with a front yard with numerous hiding places, even if the cops had said it was okay, was enough to make me not want to do it unless they had caught him or daylight had come. the dogs they use smell fear, and if that’s the case then i don’t want to be in the path of a fearful criminal. but does anyone think that many cops were needed for just a house robbery? seems like maybe it was more than that?

Police helicopters will always be present in dense living areas, deal with it. They’re quick to pinpoint suspects fleeing through infrared. Not in this case though. Echo Park is still LA. Where the hell do folks think they live? Some sheltered little community in the suburbs? Next time you can’t sleep, put on some headphones and listen to that Kenny G. SnooZe away!

Seriously…..all this and they didn’t even catch the guy? This whole production went on for AT LEAST two hours, and I like everyone else, couldn’t sleep. Our house was shaking from the helicopters flying over. I was expecting to wake up and hear that they were doing some huge sting, or capturing a murder suspect. They were after a guy on foot, and with this whole entire production, the guy is still running free? Geez guys…..

Maybe the guy they were looking for lives near in the neighborhood? Scary thought but it seems odd the police turned up with nothing after bringing the canines out and everything. Also a lone man creeping in yards so late at night also seems to indicate prowler rather than burglar to me. He also apparently came to the same apartment two nights in a row (if its the same individual). Everyone be safe and on the lookout for this guy since no apprehension was made. I’m all for pitchforks and torches if it happens again tonight.

I was dead asleep when something woke me around midnight. I looked out my window and saw a white guy in his mid to late 20s wearing a black t shirt and blue jeans and a backwards black baseball cap, clumsily climbing over the fence from my backyard to get into te neighboring yard. dude was so clumsy he broke the top of tue fence.

he then walked (note: didnt run) towards the street. and I lost sight of him. this was all followed by 3 hrs of helicopters and k9 units.

Has anybody else experienced overturned mats? I thought some cat was messing with me this summer because our backdoor mat kept getting turned over at night (like 5 nights in a row). Jeez, it was probably this guy; it was our fence that got damaged…

@scared @zap Kind of sounds like @allison resident called the cops. Don’t you think such a thing calls for professionals. I mean, what if @allison resident is a small girl living by herself. You think she should be running after a possible armed and dangerous person in the night? I mean I don’t know if they did call the cops or not……I’m just saying. I personally would NOT be running after some potential armed and dangerous person running down my street. If you would, kudos to you… You’re a neighborhood hero.

Jeez, you guys live in a big city, you’re not aloud to criticize anything that ever happens here! You should live in the suburbs because I think nothing bad or irritating ever happens there either and if it does you should shut up about that too! (fart)

Somehow I slept through the whole thing. Was dead tired. But tonight is a different story. they are going strong right over my house in Angeleno Heights right now. And as far as people bitching about people bitching. What is it you all tell them? Oh yeah, DEAL WITH IT! These blogs are meant for that!

From 11 to 11:30 pm tonight the circling helicopter was back, the spotlight focusing more on kensington this time, lighting up our driveway and yard numerous times; police officers on foot walked down the street with their flashlights, looking around… But now it’s quiet! Let’s hope it lasts. Hell hath no fury like a neighborhood of sleep deprived people. Gonna feed that tramp to the dogs.

I’ve lived in several neighborhoods where a call to the police wouldn’t result in a visit from anyone– much less police on foot, a helicopter, and dogs. So I’ll happily be a little bit sleep deprived if it means the neighborhood is protected.

UGH. The cops are outside my house now, and when I asked them what was going on, they were like (to paraphrase): “oh, there’s a wanted criminal running around your block, but you’re safe–he’s on the other side of the street!” Thanks?

on wednesday night, someone opened the gate to our backyard and then moved a heavy rock to enter a crawl space under our house on kensington road. if you live in angeleno heights, please be careful, keep an eye out and immediately report suspicious activity to the police. thank you!

There back again. Friday morning. I agree with AKR. If it was your house that had been robbed you’d be super happy to hear them searching. But it does seem that there are tons of helicopters lately. Yeah its annoying but not as annoying as having your house robbed or …

it’s kind of amazing that after searching all night wednesday nite, then all nite thursday nite (with the addition of at least 8 squadcars of cops) and now continuing thru friday morning, they have no nothing. is this guy a robbery genius, or is most policework farmed out to the inept?
(i’m not saying there aren’t good detectives out there – what i’m saying is that 90% of the cops we hire are not good detectives, and the good ones we do have are way overworked)

also – what the hell did this guys steal to warrant such an elaborate search? unless the robbery itself got violent, i can’t think of a single reason his crime warrants this level of hypersurveillance.

How do they know he’s still in the neighborhood? Has anyone seen him lately? @ Guts Lively yeah what did this guy do? Rob one of the Victorians? It must have been violent or expensive. Maybe he’s responsible for more than a few auto break-ins as well.

@Scared: i live on the second floor. by the time i would have gotten outside to “run after him” he would have been long gone. but hey, your snide comment is totally fair game, since you clearly would have done a much better job. sorry my post wasn’t detailed enough to include the fact that the amount of time it took between me looking out my window to see him jumping the fence and him walking away into the shadows between the houses, all tolled happened in under 3 seconds. by the time i lost sight of him i heard my neighbor calling the cops (he was also looking out his window).

also, just curious, what kind of super human speed do you expect me to have to be able to run downstairs from my apartment, run around the fence that separates my apartment building from the apartment building next door in time to chase after this asshole? if you live on allison ave you know how dense the housing is, and how it’s not simply a matter of walking outside into the organized space of suburbia and nabbing someone. property fences, houses, overgrown gardens, sheds, and other such dense and haphazard urban construction means that there are hell of obstacles between me and my citizen’s arrest. that, and i’m not going to out there to confront some fuckin prowler who may or may not be armed.

but hey, i’m glad to know that you’re on the internet casting judgment instead of patrolling allison ave like a good citizen.

@rizzo, about the fence: since the police were all up in my backyard and the neighbor’s backyard for 3 hours following the fence breakage, i would hope they would be smart enough to do whatever it is they need to do in order to do their job. also, considering the amount of effort they put into this, it indicates to me that they knew who this guy is and have been after him for awhile.

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